Recent cheese making processes have concentrated on the production of low fat, low cholesterol and fat free cheeses which have the texture and flavour of full fat cheese, for the increasing health conscious public and also aimed at the weight reduction and slimming food market.
In particular, a number of substances have been added to the cheese making process as fat replacement agents including starch (U.S. Pat. No. 5,547,513; U.S. Pat. No. 5,679,396; U.S. Pat. No. 5,277,926; U.S. Pat. No. 5,807,601; U.S. Pat. No. 4,552,774; U.S. Pat. No. 5,665,414); gums, such as carrageenan, xanthan, agar, alginate, guar and cellulose gels (U.S. Pat. No. 5,895,671; U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,630; U.S. Pat. No. 5,090,913; WO 86/00786); as well as both starches and gums together or in combination with other additives such as emulsifiers, flavours, stabilisers, colourants, dairy solids, cheese powders, and the like, (U.S. Pat. No. 5,902,625; U.S. Pat. No. 5,895,671; NZ 303546; U.S. Pat. No. 5,679,396; U.S. Pat. No. 5,532,018). In particular, the starting milk for these processes is either fat free or contains less than 0.3% fat (U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,630; U.S. Pat. No. 5,090,913).
Carrageenan appears to be a preferred gum in the prior art processes and has been used in a number of instances to enhance production of low fat cottage cheese and soft acid set coagulated cheeses. These methods have involved the use of carrageenan to tie up protein material from whey thereby increasing the yield levels (WO 86/00786).
To date, there is no teaching that gums, such as carrageenan may be useful in a process of cheese making wherein the starting milk has a relatively high fat content to produce low, reduced or full fat cheese, including what processing parameters would be required to produce such cheeses.
In addition, for all cheese making processes it is important to maintain the compositional and functional characteristics of the final cheese product at a standard acceptable by the industry and consumer.
In particular, melt and flavour characteristics are important for mozzarella cheese especially for cheese made for the pizza making industry. Any method of cheese making that can provide flexibility in the functional characteristics of the end cheese product gives the cheese making industry a way of producing a wide variety of cheese having the required functional characteristics in a consistent manner. This is beneficial to the cheese making industry, large consumers such as the pizza industry, as well as individual consumers.
It is an object of the present invention to provide such a process and/or at least to provide the public with a useful choice.